before our astonished gaze in the compass of Emmanuel's land, where no cloud can for a moment cast its shade between us and him who is "our peace?" When with the steady gaze of glorified spirits, we look into the long prospects of the endless future, and see not a single speck in the sun of our eternal happiness and peace. Oh, what madness to barter this inheritance for paltry possessions of the world, which perish in the very using!

Our Lord then proceeds to remind his disciples of what he had already intimated to them in the third verse of this chapter, "Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you." And as my coming again will be to you the completing and perfecting of your joy, seeing "I will then receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also;" so now you ought to rejoice with me, since I am going to my Father, to be removed from all my pains and sorrows and agonies, and to appear at his right hand for you, clothed with the manhood I have assumed for your sakes. Ye ought to rejoice at this; "for my Father is greater than I;" though I am equal to the Father as touching the godhead, yet am I inferior to the Father as touching the manhood, and thus you should rejoice at my going to the Father, as a mark of honour put on the manhood I have voluntarily assumed, and a token of the future glory which awaits yourselves when admitted in your ransomed bodies before the throne of God.

"And now, our Lord adds, I have told you before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass, ye might believe." He had told them of what was awaiting himself, of his being betrayed to cruel mockings and death; he had told them of his rising again and ascension into heaven, and of the pouring forth of the Holy Spirit upon them in all his unctional and comforting power, and all this he told them,

that they might believe. And certainly no combination of evidence could be greater than that which was brought to bear on the hearts of the disciples by this discourse of our Lord. Thus for example a miracle is a powerful evidence, prophecy is also another very strong and convincing evidence; but the greatest and most forcible of all evidence is when these two are combined, even as they were here, for the assurance of the disciples of our Lord. He told them of his sufferings, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, and the coming of the Holy Ghost; here was the "sure word of prophecy," and all these things came to pass as Jesus had forewarned them. But the very fulfilment of many of them was miraculous. His bursting the bands of death, his gently rising in the clouds of heaven before them, his Spirit descending and instantaneously filling them with miraculous gifts and powers; all these, while but the accomplishment of their master's word, bore with the most resistless energy on their minds, by the supernatural character of that accomplishment.

Having thus declared to his disciples one object he had in view in entering upon many of the particulars of which he had spoken,-"That ye might believe,"-Jesus said unto them, "Hereafter I will not talk much with you," as if cautioning them that the time of his sojourn with them was now nearly at an end; "the little while" was nearly past, and therefore it behoved them to give all diligence to attend unto his word, carefully to treasure up the promises and precepts which he in his infinite wisdom might still address to them, " For," he adds, "the prince of this world cometh." Satan with his agents, were now pressing on to their last struggle with the Son of man. "This is your hour and the power of darkness," said the suffering Jesus when in the midst of the conflict; and now it was so near

at hand, that his disciples would not for many minutes longer enjoy the blessing and privilege of hearing his divine instructions.

"The Prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." That wicked usurper over the creation of God, had already tried his arts upon the Saviour. In the wilderness he had sought to tempt him from his work and ministry, and then he "found nothing in him," he was "without sin," was proof against all his wiles. And now he was about to return to the assault in another way, and under another form; suffering, agony, mockings, scourgings, death, were all to be used by him against the Prince of Peace-but all these too without avail-for he "had nothing in him." There was nothing common to the two, Christ was more distinct from Belial than light from darkness, nor could the utmost malice of the enemy find a single point in the character or desires of Him, who was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners," on which to plant effectually his mighty engines of temptation.

But, our Lord proceeds, "That the world may know that I love the Father." The prince of this world had nothing in Christ, but it was permitted to him to make his advances against the man Christ Jesus, not as if there were even the remotest possibility of his success, "but that the world might know," that all might see, might have evidence in the struggle and conflict between light and darkness, that Jesus loved the Father. That in his successful beating back of Satan, he might prove to men and angels his love for his Father's glory, whose kingdom on earth Satan had usurped. And he likewise permitted the approach of "the Prince of this world" to assail him, in order to prove his submission to his Father's will, that as he had appointed him to pass through such a warfare, an l

bear such a burden, he was ready to obey: "As the Father gave me commandment, even so I do." This was the distinguishing feature of the character of the Son of God. When he came into the world, and humbled himself, he instantly bowed down in obedience to his Father: “Lo, I come to do thy will." When engaged in his public ministry he made the same distinct acknowledgment: "My meat is to do the will of him who sent me." "I came, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me." And now, as he is about to leave the scene of his labours and his sufferings, he still proceeds in the same spirit, "As the Father gave me commandment, even so I do."

Would, beloved, that there were such a spirit in us! The Prince of this world has too much in us-he has too many lodging-places in our heart. Oh that we may drive him from his throne there, by setting up the "will of the Father" in every affectionate desire and emotion of the soul. Oh that we may crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts, and be no longer led captive of Satan at his will. Oh that we may "put on the Lord Jesus Christ," and then his mind will be ours, we shall, like him, do all to the glory of God the Father, we shall know no other will but the Father's will, and we shall cheerfully encounter every difficulty, and successfully vanquish every foe; because he who commands us to engage our enemy, will "teach our hands to war, and our fingers to fight," and "make us more than conquerors."

EXPOSITION VIII.

JOHN XV. 1—11.

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit: so shall ye be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.

SOME have supposed, from the concluding sentence of the preceding chapter, "Arise, let us go hence," that our Lord delivered the portion of his address contained in the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters, and also offered up the beautiful prayer in the seventeenth chapter, when he and his disciples were on their way to the Mount of Olives, after they had left the supper-room, and before they "went forth over the brook Cedron;" and that passing a vine on their way, our